What is the “Family House”?

The “Family house” is typically a  house, that is usually resided in by one or two older parents where the children have “left the nest”. The adult children and their grandchildren regularly visit this house to see the parents and, in most cases, they stay in this house on a temporary basis. In a lot of situations, family friends will end up visiting or staying over at this house in the company of the family members.

Such situations typically include the children who normally are out of town coming in to town for business, leisure or to attend family events; the children seeking temporary accommodation while their house is being built or renovated, or are between houses. It may also include the “family house” being close to a place of study which a grandchild is enrolled at and the grandchild stays there while completing a course of study. As well, the parents typically end up caring for the very young grandchildren in this house while their children work or undertake other activities.

This concept may also extend to any occasional-use accommodation that the family shares responsibility in maintaining, like city apartments or holiday / seasonal houses. In the latter situation, a household or the whole family ends up staying in this accommodation.

Common practice with IT at these locations

Compaq Presario CQ42 entry-level laptop

In these places, there may not be an intention to have full Internet service at these houses because the main householder may not be a regular Internet user. But what can happen is that other people in the house make regular use of the Internet. This would typically be achieved through each device that other people bring in using a mobile-broadband service for their Internet.

A small number of portable devices that someone owns can be served with this kind of Internet connection using a “Mi-Fi” mobile router or a smartphone that implements a “personal hotspot” mode.

A significant cost difference

But this may only work best with one rarely-used device on the premises. This is because most of the wireless-broadband services work on bandwidth that is narrower than wireline broadband services like cable-modem or ADSL services.

As well, the tariff charts for these services are typically more expensive than most of the wireline broadband services. Here, you end up paying more for the same bandwidth allowance and usage quota than you would for a cable or ADSL broadband service of equivalent standard or, for the same money you pay for a wireless-broadband service, you would obtain more bandwidth and usage quota.

Should I establish the full home network here?

It would be worth it to establish the full home network with a fixed broadband service if there is at least one Internet terminal that is used regularly by at least one of the parents, a relative or another regular houseguest. The Internet terminal, which can be a desktop, “all-in-one” or laptop / notebook computer or a tablet MID like the iPad, can be either owned by the parent or a regular houseguest like the grandchild who is staying regularly at that location.

The Internet deals commonly available

The common marketing practices amongst most wireline broadband Internet providers who run a voice telephony or multichannel pay-TV service is to offer a sweet deal where the customer benefits from reduced service costs if they have their telephony or TV service provisioned by this Internet provider. Some of these deals are provided as “triple-play” packages especially if all services come through the one physical line.

If you are in a highly competitive Internet-service market like UK, Australia or France, you may find these deals being offered at some very attractive prices that make you not even think twice about signing up.

I often suggest that people take advantage of these abovementioned offers when choosing their Internet service for these locations because this may help with saving money on this service. These deals will usually be advertised in brochures that accompany the regular bill for the phone or pay-TV service that they currently are subscribed to.

In some houses where there are older people who don’t use the internet frequently, one or more younger people who make use of the Internet could incite the older people to make increased use of the Internet. This can be done by the younger person sharing their computer with them, demonstrating various Internet and computing skills and assisting the older person with these skills.

As well, you may find that there are new media paths being opened up by a home network associated with a wireline Internet service in the “family house”. Examples of this include use of Internet radios that pick up the Web feeds of overseas and obscure radio stations as well as access to Internet TV through the use of a compatible TV or set-top box and music, pictures or video on-demand through the house with cost-effective equipment.

It also includes the like of Netflix or Spotify as content services; along with TV stations offering catch-up / video-on-demand services that can even be viewed through the big-screen TV with an appropriate set-top box.

Who should bear the extra costs

Issues that may come up include whether the houseguests like the children should cover any extra costs associated with use of a full broadband Internet service at the “family house” if the main householder isn’t the one using that service. This may be of little impact to the guests because the wireline broadband services will be relatively cheaper than running a wireless broadband service which just services one computer.

Establishing the full home network

The network-Internet “edge”

Netgear DG834G ADSL2 wireless router

You may have to make sure that you use a wireless router if you have a laptop computer or other portable Internet device on the premises as the network-Internet “edge”. Most of these devices are for sale at very affordable prices and you could get one through your Internet service provider as part of your broadband Internet deal. As well, I have written a buyer’s guide about the entry-level wireless routers. The limitation with most of the units supplied by your Internet service provider is that they may yield average performance and may not offer the functionality as a retail-supplied unit.

Assuring proper wireless coverage

Some houses that have interior walls made out of double-brick or stone may have problems when it comes to operating a wireless network. This is something I have touched on in this Website many times and can be handled with an auxiliary access point installed in the area where wireless-network coverage is below par and connected to the router via an Ethernet or HomePlug wired backbone as explained here.

Or pay attention to newer distributed-WiFi setups that are increasingly being offered by many network-hardware manufacturers and Internet service providers. They will have a router and at least another access-point module and are designed to be simple to set up and manage and spread the Wi-Fi coverage around the house. Most of these setups rely on you using a particular range of equipment offered by the same manufacturer but pay attention to devices that are compatible with Wi-Fi EasyMesh technology. These will allow you to use equipment offered by different manufacturers as long as it works to this standard. If you are in Australia and sign up to fixed broadband service through Telstra, you may find that your Smart Modem Generation 2 modem-router that they supply you supports Wi-Fi EasyMesh.

It is also worth knowing about how to encompass outbuildings like bungalows in to the scope of the home network, a reality which will be of importance for country or outer-urban properties. Here, I have written a good feature article on how to achieve this goal in a manner that is best suited to your particular scenario.

Printers

As well, when you need to install or upgrade the printer, you may need to go for a unit that has network connectivity of some sort. If the main computer device happens to be a tablet computer, you may have to look at a printer that is supported by an app or the tablet’s operating system. You may also have to make sure your printer supports AirPrint and Mopria driver-free printing functionality so it can print from mobile devices running iOS or Android.

Brother DCP-J562DW multi-function printer

You don’t have to have a machine with all the “bells and whistles” if it is not going to be used regularly – here an economy-level network capable printer may just suffice. Even so, you should prefer a printer that uses separate colour cartridges rather than the tri-colour cartridge because you won’t be wasting colour ink if one colour runs out.

There is an exception if the house has a regularly-used fax machine. Here, you could replace the fax machine with a network-enabled multifunction printer which has integrated fax capabilities. Again, these would be much more cheaper to run than the typical older “thermal-belt-driven” fax machines that some households still consider as fax machines.

Network-attached storage devices

It may be worth considering the purchase of a one-disk network-attached-storage device at a later time as the network is used more. This may allow for pooling of common files like driver files for various peripherals as well as a backup storage for data held on one or more of the computers.

As well, most of these devices provide media-server functionality for Apple iTunes and standards-based DLNA setups so that your pictures, videos and music can be “pulled up” on demand. This may work well as a central media store which can be used as a way of “offloading” the media from a computer’s hard disk or making it available to everyone at all times without the need to have a computer on all the time.

This function will become more relevant as more consumer AV equipment becomes equipped with some form of network connectivity and is able to play or show AV content from the Internet or media servers like these network-attached storage devices. Infact I have covered this topic very heavily on this site and you can look at this article here as it pertains to these devices as media servers.

Conclusion

I would recommend that you look at the value of providing a full home network with wireline broadband service to the “family house” if you notice that there is a strong likelihood of regular Internet use there.

Updates

This article has been updated on September 2020 to encompass newer trends affecting Internet at the “family bouse” including distributed Wi-Fi setups, more online audio and video and printers supporting AirPrint and Mopria.

Introduction

Most email services, especially those offered by consumer ISPs, use the old POP3 / SMTP protocols as the backbone for their email services. This works properly when only one computer is working as an email client because there is an expectation for the email to be downloaded off the mail server to that one computer.

Now the reality has changed due to Moore’s Law allowing for the ISP to offer email storage capacity to their customers in the order of gigabytes. As well, the computing paradigm has shifted towards people viewing their email from multiple devices. This has been brought about with small business owners having an office computer and a home computer, as well as the increasing popularity of smartphones, tablet computers and secondary-tier notebook computers like netbooks and 13”-14” ultraportables.

What does IMAP4 offer over POP3?

The IMAP4 technology requires email to be stored on the server and allows a copy of the mail to exist on the client devices. When the email client connects to the IMAP4 server, it simply synchronises all the email between the client and the server. This includes synchronising the client outbox to the server outbox in order to have emails being sent.

There is the ability for an IMAP4 setup to support “header-only” downloading, which would be of importance to people who use portable devices or low-bandwidth connections. As well, an IMAP4 setup can allow the user to operate in “offline” mode where synchronising is done when the user explicitly goes online so that users can prepare their email where Internet access is unavailable but synchronise when it is available.

Compared to POP3 / SMTP, this allows for increased flexibility when it comes to maintaining a mailbox from different email clients. Primarily, the contents of the same mailbox appear in all client devices that can access that mailbox. An example of this benefit would be that the Sent folder contains all messages that are sent from all of the clients rather than from that particular client. Similarly, one could “rough-out” an email using a smartphone or other portable device, then “finish it off” on the desktop because the email will be held in the Drafts mailbox folder.

It also supports the ability to create mailbox folders which will allow you to file the email in a manner that suits you, yet see the same filing arrangement across all your client devices.

It is also worth knowing that IMAP4 is the basic email protocol that OMTP have called as part of their standard for mobile “visual voicemail” services. These services allow a user to manage voicemail that they receive on their mobile phone in a similar manner to how they manage email on their computer or smartphone.

The status quo with IMAP4

IMAP4 is a free open-source technology that is independent of any licensing requirements; and nearly all email clients for desktop and mobile operating environments offer IMAP4 support as standard.

It is even though most of the consumer ISPs don’t offer it as an email protocol to their customers. This is while an increasing number of these providers are now offering mailboxes with gigabyte file capacities to new customers and upsizing existing customers’ mailboxes to these capacities. As well, the current range of data-centre equipment that works as mail servers can handle IMAP4 easily.

Some of these providers would rather offer a “hosted Exchange” service which would require the user to use Microsoft Outlook in Exchange mode. These services are more expensive to provide and may cost more for most personal and small-business users.

What could be done

An Internet service provider could offer IMAP4 mailboxes as a standard option for new customers or customers opening up new mailboxes. As well, they could offer it as a free upgrade option to existing customers, with information on how to convert from POP3 / SMTP to IMAP4.

This kind of setup that IMAP4 offers can allow telcos who offer Internet service and telephony as a bundle or triple-play services to provide a unified messaging environment where customers can manage their voicemail, fax and email from the same terminal. It also opens up ways for these companies to add value to their telephony and Internet services.

It also is a way of supporting the Internet-usage reality which is a reality driven by multiple-computer setups and portable computing.

Articles – all in German language

Kabel Deutschland: Highspeed-Internet für knapp 20 Euro pro Monat – COMPUTER BILD

From the horse’s mouth

Information page on Kabel Deutschland’s Website

Translated facts and my comments

It certainly shows that the DOCSIS-based cable modem is being forgotten as a broadband technology. This is especially as people think of the “switched” DSL technologies (ADSL and VDSL) and the hot-shot fibre-to-the-door technologies as the preferred broadband setups for the home network.

In Germany, Kabel Deutschland who is the main cable-TV provider there, are offering 100Mb/s “headline-speed” broadband and VoIP telephony for 20€ per month for the first 12 months (which is the minimum contract length). Then it will go to a month-by-month rate of 40€ per month for the same service. There is even the option of a 802.11n Wi-Fi router with 4 Gigabit Ethernet ports on the LAN side for €49.90.

Like all European telephony+broadband and “triple-play” contracts, this one offers the “all-you-can-talk” for landline telephones in the country and for a few euro extra per month, “all-you-can-talk” to the common destinations in Europe, North America and Australia.

This service will be offered where Kabel Deutschland are running DOCSIS 3.0 technology for cable broadband which is at the moment 40% of the country.

This is an example of what lively competition can offer for telephony and broadband Internet. It also shows what can happen if another technology becomes popular in a country and companies who are standing behind a particular technology like cable Internet need to put this on the “radar”.

Articles

BBC News – Plan to tackle Flintshire’s broadband ‘notspots’ (VIDEO)

BBC News – Action to eliminate Flintshire broadband ‘notspots’

My Comments

Another area of Wales is being tackled when it comes to providing broadband Internet of a real standard. This area encompasses Caerwys communities, Talacre, Deeside industrial estate and Ysceiflog; which are in the Flintshire county. Here, local government, in the form of the Flintshire County Council, is behind the effort

This issue has been made real because of the business necessity of a proper broadband Internet service. An example that was cited in the articles was the Northop Hall Country House Hotel losing a GBP£70,000 conference contract because the broadband Internet service wasn’t up to standard for overseas guests who were doing international business at a conference. Here, proper broadband Internet is becoming an expected service for hotels and similar venues, especially if the hotel wants to be valued as a place for business conferences.

I have always made readers aware of the common limitations that occur with ADSL broadband Internet deployments in regional and rural areas when I have commented on broadband in the country.

In these setups, the telephone exchange that services these areas is equipped with the DSLAM which is the necessary equipment for the broadband service, but the cabling infrastructure between the exchange and the customer’s premises is long and commonly operating below par. The ADSL broadband Internet service works at its best when the consumer’s ADSL modem receives a strong signal from the DSLAM installed in the exchange; and long or derelict telecommunications-wiring infrastructure between these devices works against this goal.

As well, in some cases, the telco has used pair-gain wiring – a cheap and lazy telecommunications wiring method –  to connect an increased number of telephone services in an area with fewer wires. Such services wouldn’t work well with machine-to-machine communications and are totally incompatible with ADSL.

These situations can work against the provisioning of real broadband Internet in rural areas and whenever Internet is provided to these areas, it isn’t just putting the appropriate modems in the equipment rack in the exchange that needs to be considered. These deployments may have to include reassessing the wiring in the neighbourhood and, in some cases, doing necessary work on the wiring to enable people to subscribe to broadband Internet at a real bandwidth.

I just hope that telecommunications companies always keep tabs on the condition of the telephone wiring infrastructure in the country and do better research on providing a proper standard of broadband Internet service in the country.

News Articles

BBC News – £98 PCs target UK digital divide

Race Online 2012 to bring sub-£100 PC’s to market | ThnikBroadband.com (UK)

Web site

http://raceonline2012.org

My comments

Some parts of Britain are now providing disadvantaged people with access to subsidised computer equipment for GBP98 and are providing wireless-broadhand Internet access facilitated by Three Broadband, at GBP9 per month or GBP18 for three months; as part of a 12-month “IT-enablement” trial.

The idea behind this subsidised IT program, which is run by the “Race Online 2012” action group, is to allow access to online skills for study and work. In some cases, the study may be online only such as through distance-learning options like Open University or may require a significant amount of time spent online for the course.

One benefit will be that the program will be working with computer-education facilities around the UK and also provide telephone-based support for the users. This, in my opinion, would also need to respect the needs of people who most likely wouldn’t be computer-literate.

Usually, this class of user will end up with, at best, a “hand-me-down” computer which is very slow at best. They may not get any sort of Internet or may be lucky to get an ADSL broadband service for their Internet connection.

As far as I know, the computers will typically be refurbished units, most likely desktops. But I often wonder what condition they will be refurbished to especially that an ATX-standard “mini-tower” desktop system could be renewed with modest but new hardware at a cost-effective price. The systems will typically come with a flatscreen monitor, keyboard and mouse and come with Linux and other open-source software. The previously-mentioned Internet connection will be provided with a USB-connected wireless-broadhand modem. This solution may cater for the “prepaid-mobile-only” households that wouldn’t be deemed acceptable to run a landline phone service with ADSL Internet due to poor credit standings.

Remploy, who are a supported-workshop program for assisting young people with employment skills and who are behind this program, have a goal to sell 8000 machines in 12 months

Issues that may be raised

Security

It may be so easy to think that Linux may be hard to hack, being a UNIX-derived operating system and not-so-popular, but there would have to be someone like AVG working on a free “household-grade” desktop security package, This is because hackers can turn their attention to any operating system even though it may not be popularly deployed and, as I know in the days when MS-DOS started to become the popular operating environment, other desktop operating environments were still as vulnerable and I always hold that belief.

3G wireless broadband the answer for Internet service?

Some of us may find that the 3G wireless-broadband technology may not be enough for Internet service to this community as the only broadband technology. This is because some neighbourhoods may provide very low or non-existent coverage, especially if the device is a 3G “stick” modem.

There have been other ways of providing cost-effective “always-on” broadband Internet. For example, I reported previously (older article, article after SFR takeover) in 2008 on this site about some public-housing developments in Paris, France have been set up with “Triple-Play Social” with 512kbps Internet, regular broadcast TV and inbound telephone use for 1 euro per month courtesy of SFR / Neuf Cegetel. This bandwidth could provide enough bandwidth for most Internet activities.  Some of these activities could be observed especially as there is an increased rollout of next-generation broadband Internet service in most countries.

Articles

BBC News – BT rolls out broadband to two Valleys towns

BBC News – Broadband for two rural market towns

My comments

I have previously covered efforts by companies like Rutland Telecom to have villages and small towns in the UK covered with proper-standard broadband. Examples of this include Rutland Telecom “lighting up” Lyddington in Leicestershire and Hambleton in Rutland as well as Vtesse lighting up Hatt and Higher Pill in Cornwall. Now, British Telecom, the UK equivalent of Telstra, have stepped up to the plate and started rolling out next-generation broadband in to various rural communities in the UK.

Examples of these include Pontcymmer and Baenganw near Bridgend in Wales as well as Oswestry in Shropshire and Stourport in Worcestershire. Infact, they are wanting to “wire up” properly more of the market towns in rural Wales like the whole of Bridgend,  Chepstow in Monmouthshire, Hengoed in Caerphilly, Llantrisant and Llantwit Fardre in Rondda Cynon Taf.

One of the aims stated by BT Openreach who manage the infrastructure and provide the service to retail providers was to reduce the numbers of people that left out of the broadband loop when they were talking of the Midlands deployments. Other quotes included the fact that this was not a rural issue but areas of some of the towns wore not receiving Internet service that wasn’t of proper expectations. This was also going to affect the use of broadband Internet service as a business tool.

What I had observed was that even in the tough economic times, broadband Internet service was being pushed to the same level of expectation as mains electricity or a telephone service. This can then allow for ideals like improved business knowledge as well as the ability to provide your goods  and services in a competitive manner.

Article

thinkbroadband :: Rutland Telecom to deploy fibre to Hambleton village

From the horse’s mouth

Internet service for Hambleton – Rutland Telecom

Rutland Telecom – Web site

My comments

Rutland Telecom is at it again with another UK village being wired up with next-generation broadband. Here, Hambleton which is near Oakham in Rutland, is being equipped with fibre-to-the-premises broadband.

They are achieving this goal in a similar community-driven model to the VDSL-based fibre-to-the-cabinet setup in Lyddington, Leicestershire which I have touched on in this site.

One thing that impressed me about this is that it is technically “ahead of its time”. Here, the setup uses an “active” point-to-point fibre arrangement rather than the commonly-deployed “passive optical network” arrangement. This is equivalent to moving a wired Ethernet network froam a hub wihch shared the bandwidth between the devices to a switch which gives each device its own bandwidth at the best speed. Here, the setup is future proof and capable of high speeds and increased bandwidth and can satisfactorily cope with the situation when the village becomes a town.

There had been 60% takeup on the offer to register for the next-generation broadband which shows real interest in better-standard Internet in the country. The service is intended to go live on (North-Hemisphere) Spring 2011.

This company is now encouraging other small UK communities to gain their help in setting up next-generation broadband. It could then be a step in the right direction for telecom co-operatives and similar companies to look towards raising the bar for a standard of Internet service normally taken for granted in urban areas.